We Need to Talk About Black Friday

Thanksgiving weekend is rife with gluttony. That's part of what makes it American. Gluttony is not a good thing, but it is a thing and it's among the most visible first world problems.

That weekend usually looks something like this: We drink too many beers on Wednesday night after too many hours of stressful travel to a location we may or may not even want to be. Then we wake up and eat a too-large breakfast Thursday morning after promising ourselves we wouldn't. Then we sit around and drink more beer and watch football—you know, resting up for the big meal. Then we sit at a table with people we don't see very often and we eat double or triple the amount of food we normally would, often at an earlier time than we normally would, plus dessert. Then maybe there's a mild toss of a football before more drinking and more sitting for long stretches of time. Then we wake up Friday morning to spend a lot of money.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

It's a tired old routine, but is is, nonetheless, a routine. Over the last decade, major retailers have thwarted these sacred tryptophanian rhythms by instituting "door buster" sales. Eight in the morning wasn't early enough, it had to be six. Then five. Then four. Then 12:01 Friday morning, the first possible minute of Black Friday's existence. Then just plain old midnight Thursday.

Now, the linesbetween Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday are blurring altogether, with the announcement from Macy's that its full-line department stores will open at 6 p.m. Thanksgiving night, a whopping two hours earlier than last year.

As reported by NBC News, 15,000 people were waiting outside Macy's flagship Herald Square store when those same doors flung open at 8 p.m. last year. This is the same store, mind you, that serves as the literal and figurative centerpiece of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. All of those Broadway numbers and forgotten '90s R&B performances you see on TV? They happen right outside this exact same Macy's. The parade usually wraps up at noon, which will give the staff six hours to clear out the remnants of one of the largest annual parades in the United States. All so you can line up alongside 14,999 other people (maybe more this year) and buy some relatively discounted stuff.

Look, we are not picking on Macy's here. Macy's is an iconic American retailer that offers great utility—and often value—year-round (see their discounted Polo section, for one). But Thanksgiving is a holiday, a day of escape from the crush of humanity, a day "off." Go ahead and co-opt Thanksgiving Eve, Black Friday, and Oh-My-God-What-Did-I-Do-I-Hate-Myself Saturday. But please, fellow shoppers, leave Thanksgiving day alone.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Christmas shopping is supposed to be minimally enjoyable. You are supposed to buy well-thought-out gifts for those you love, or reward yourself for a year of hard work with a big ticket item you've been saving for. You are not supposed to abandon your family and a still-warm turkey in search of discount pants.

Finding good value is an important aspect of shopping, and it always will be. But at what point does searching for "cheap" end up cheapening your life?